


I Like Amputees with Stamp Collections

by tainted_wolf



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, M/M, Songfic, just so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 05:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7831285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainted_wolf/pseuds/tainted_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU where James and John are married and need to talk about what happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Need to Talk

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song So Nice So Smart by Kimya Dawson
> 
> I thought of this when I was driving down a very long road, and this song came on.

John Silver sat in bed with his legs tucked in and tried not to cry. He tried not to feel the hole in his chest and pain searing through his heart.

It was three in the morning, and his husband, James Flint, wasn’t home from work yet. James was a philosophy instructor at the local university. The latest he had ever been home was midnight, but not lately. He had been arriving later and later every evening more disheveled than the night before.

John tried to be calm. He reasoned that James loved him and would never cheat on him. Unfortunately, the little voice in his head didn’t get the memo. It whispered mean things.

‘You’re not a whole man anymore. Why would he want something that’s broken? He’s probably fucking some young, college student over his desk right now. He probably won’t even come home tonight. You’re not worth it.’

He couldn’t fight it anymore. He gave into the pain in his throat and eyes. The tears started to freely flow down his face. John losing his leg had put a lot of strain on their relationship. He tried to pretend that he was fine, but he saw.

He saw the way James wouldn’t really look at his leg. He noticed the way he would find a reason to leave the room if John was cleaning his stump. James hadn’t touched him since the car accident. At first, John thought it was because James now saw him as something easily breakable. Now, he knows its disgust that crosses him face when John kisses him.

He tries to curl tighter in on himself as the crying becomes more violent. Sobs are shaking his entire body now. Half a year’s worth of pent-up emotion releasing all at once. He can’t stop. Not even when he hears the door unlock.

James drags himself into the room and drops his messenger bad. John’s cries are quiet, but he’s staring right at his husband. James slowly lifts his eyes off his feet to look at him.

His face goes slack, like he doesn’t know what to do. The next second he dashes to John. “What’s wrong?” he demands grabbing his face. “John, tell me what’s wrong! Is it your leg?”

The attention just causes John to cry harder. He grabs James’s wrists to keep them from being pulled away from his face.

“John. Please, say something,” James pleads. He sounds scared.

John focuses his gaze on James’s chest and tries to breath. He uses the hands on his face and his grip on the wrists to ground himself. When he’s recovered enough to speak, he closes his eyes. He can’t look at him while he says this.

“I love you,” he murmurs in a shaky voice. “I love you so much. And I know that my stump repulses you, but I’ll hide it.” He opens his eyes to look at James pleadingly, and his words start rushing out him. “I can wear pants all the time. I’ll go to bed after you, so you don’t have to watch me take it off. I’ll get up before you. I can sleep in another room. You don’t have to come to any of my doctor’s visit or physical therapy. I’ll do anything. Just, please,” he starts crying again. “Please, don’t leave me.”

After that, he flings himself into James’s chest and keeps whispering, “Please.”

James is stunned. He quickly wraps his arms around John and pulls him tight against him. “I’m not leaving. I would never leave you. Please, don’t cry. John. I love you so much.” James feels as though someone has stabbed him in the chest. Tears are flowing down his face to land in John’s hair. He starts slowly rocking them back and forth, whispering reassurances.

It’s almost an hour before they both stop crying. James is cradling John’s face, slowly rubbing his thumb on the shell of his ear. John feels completely drained. He hasn’t been this tired since he woke up in the hospital. He pulls back. James is reluctant to let go.

John looks at him with such heartbreak in his eyes. “We need to talk, but I’m too tired.”

James nods. “We can talk tomorrow.” 

More tears spring up in John’s eye but nothing like it was before. “Will you hold me tonight?” His voice breaks on the last word. 

It causes tears to come back to James’s eyes. “Of course.”

They lay on their sides facing each other. James kisses his forehead right before John burrows his face into his neck. His head rests on one of James’s arm, and the other wraps around his waist to rest on his back. Their feet are tangled together. 

They hadn’t held each other in so long. It feels as though their mending the holes in their chests with the other person. It felt this way before the accident, but never this intense. Before it was a want they could live without. They could say their goodbyes and go their own ways. This is a need. If they don’t get it now, they will break into pieces that will never be able to be put back together.


	2. Clearing the Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and James finally talk to each other.

John slowly wakes up to the feeling of James running his fingers through his hair. He smiles and let’s himself drift in that blissful moment. Right now, he couldn’t think of anything else he would rather be doing with anyone else. This moment was healing the raw, painful spots on his heart.

He slowly rolls onto his back but makes sure that his side is still flush against James. He resumes touching his hair. John slides the back of his fingers across James’s cheek. He trails is through the stubble to trace the lines that fan out from his eyes.

“What are you thinking?” John asks softly.

James looks at him with so much love in his eyes it makes it hard for him to breathe. “’I hope to arrive to my death late, in love, and a little drunk.’”

“Who said that?’

“Atticus,” James replies smiling.

“Any more good quotes?”

“’Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’ Emily Bronte.  
‘In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.’ Maya Angelou.”

John smiles and closes his eyes. “Keep going.” He feels James’s chuckle more than he hears it.

James kisses his hair and sighs. “We need to talk,” he gently reminds.

John can’t help but stiffen. Things in their life are about to change again. What if he can’t handle this change? What if James decides to leave? What is he supposed to do then?

They both sit up. James props himself against the headboard of the bed. John slides between his legs, his back on James’s chest. Strong arms wrap around his. Anchors to keep him from floating away.

“Please talk to me,” James implores, resting his cheek on his head.

The tightness is back in John’s throat. Tears are already clouding his vision. He has to take a few breaths before he can talk. “Where have you been the past week?” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but it was a start.

“Billy, one of the other philosophy instructors, ran off over the weekend to elope with his boyfriend, Ben. I’ve been forced to grade 200 ten-page papers that he left.”

John accept it as the truth. His fingers start to trace invisible lines across James’s arms. The next question is harder to ask. “Does my leg disgust you?”

“No.” James says firmly. “Why would you think that?”

Tears are escaping his eyes now. “You haven’t touched me or looked at it since the accident.”

A sigh ghost across his neck. “I couldn’t look at you knowing that it was my fault.” His voice is thick with emotion.

“What?” John asks confused.

“The wreck. It was my fault. I wanted to leave the party early. You and Miranda wanted to stay, but I just wanted to go home because I got in a fight with Peter Ashe.” James is crying now. John is frozen. He had no idea his husband was carrying around this guilt. “If we stayed, we wouldn’t have slid off the bridge, you would have your leg, and Miranda would be alive. I killed her.” 

He’s crying uncontrollably now like John was last night. Tears are soaking the back of his neck. James’s arms and legs are like vices around him. He buries his face in his hair. “I’m so sorry, John. I’m sorry. So. So. Sorry.”

John grabs his arms and refuses to let go. All this time he was thinking about himself and his leg. He never stopped to think that James would blame himself for it. He never thought about how hard it was for him to lose his best friend of twelve years.

He just waits for James to cry. To cry for the loss of his friend. To cry about carrying the burden. He waits for him to get through it. There is nothing he can do except hold and comfort him.

“I don’t blame you. At all. And, if Miranda was here, she’d slap you for being an idiot.” They’re the only things he can think of to say. There should be more. He should be able to comfort James, give him reassurance. But he can’t. It breaks his heart a little more. “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

It takes a while, James gets through it. John turns in his arms to look at him. His eyes are swollen, and his entire face is splotchy and red. He gives him a small kiss and rests their foreheads together, eyes slipping closed.

They still have more talking to do. There are things that still need to be worked through. Miranda’s death and John’s missing leg will always be a shadow over their lives. But they can work through it. For now, they breathe and try to mend.

“I will not be the end of you, James Flint,” he says fervently.


End file.
